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A Rumor of War |  | Author: Philip Caputo
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy Used: $2.50
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Seller: Puerto Guate
Rating:  118 reviews
Sales Rank: 5779
Media: Paperback
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 356
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 080504695X
Dewey Decimal Number: 959.70438
EAN: 9780805046953
ASIN: 080504695X
Publication Date: November 15, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
When it first appeared, A Rumor of War brought home to American readers, with terrifying vividness and honesty, the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on the soldiers who fought there. And while it is a memoir of one young man’s experiences and therefore deeply personal, it is also a book that speaks powerfully to today’s students about the larger themes of human conscience, good and evil, and the desperate extremes men are forced to confront in any war.
A platoon commander in the first combat unit sent to fight in Vietnam, Lieutenant Caputo landed at Danang on March 8, 1965, convinced that American forces would win a quick and decisive victory over the Communists. Sixteen months later and without ceremony, Caputo left Vietnam a shell-shocked veteran whose youthful idealism and faith in the rightness of the war had been utterly shattered. A Rumor of War tells the story of that trajectory and allows us to see and feel the reality of the conflict as the author himself experienced it, from the weeks of tedium hacking through scorching jungles, to the sudden violence of ambushes and firefights, to the unbreakable bonds of friendship forged between soldiers, and finally to a sense of the war as having no purpose other than the fight for survival. The author gives us a precise, tactile view of both the emotional and physical reality of war.
When Caputo is reassigned to headquarters as “Officer in Charge of the Dead,” he chronicles the psychological cost of witnessing and recording the human toll of the war. And after his voluntary transfer to the frontlines, Caputo shows us that the major weapons of guerrilla fighting are booby traps and land mines, and that success is measured not in feet but in body counts. Nor does the author shrink from admitting the intoxicating intensity of combat, an experience so compelling that many soldiers felt nostalgic for it years after they’d left
Vietnam. Most troubling, Caputo gives us an unflinching view not only of remarkable bravery and heroism but also of the atrocities committed in Vietnam by ordinary men so numbed by fear and desperate to survive that their moral distinctions had collapsed.
More than a statement against war, Caputo’s memoir offers readers today a profoundly visceral sense of what war is and, as the author says, of “the things men do in war and the things war does to men.”
This edition includes a twentieth-anniversary postscript by the author.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 118
Superb. June 8, 2010
Bob Hoskins (Elkhorn, WI USA)
This is one of those books that just captivates you in a macabre kind of way. You can't put it down because you just have to keep reading to try and absorb what it is you're actually reading.
As I was reading this I was reminded of the young Tom Cruise in "Born on the 4th". You could feel from the book that overwhelming Marine patriotism. After a few false starts the Marines get to Vietnam and start to do what they do best which is "dig in". Then they start to patrol. You can feel through the words the overwhelming sense of confusion but it's still subservient to the overwhelming sense of patriotism.
The battalion starts to get picked apart by constant sniper fire and booby traps. Dead Guy here, blown up leg there and there's usually no one to shoot back at. Through all this the guys patrol for hours, sit in half submerged fox holes all night, endure a hellish environment of heat and bugs the likes of which we have no comprehension and they don't complain (too loudly) as they're doing what they've been told is right.
The writer has a marvelous way of implicitly conveying his feelings through his choice of words as he describes life in Vietnam. You can feel his patriotism and belief in the war fray at the edges until that youthful patriotism and shiny, wide eyed outlook is basically full of holes and diminished. He reaches conclusions that are both horrible and terrifying when you are up to your eyeballs in a mess you can't get out of.
Too many men have died, lost one or two limbs, or gone crazy, and it all seems for nothing as there isn't and never was a measure of success for the Marines. They'd take a hill one day and have to take the same hill a week later. Very very frustrating for men on the ground who's sole purpose as infantry is to gain ground.
Excellent book. Written from the gut and devastatingly honest. I highly recommend it.
Wow May 15, 2010
The Stig (ACT, Australia)
Wow, this guy can write. Read it. I was just sorry it wasn't longer.
The Rumor Being True March 31, 2010
Roberto J. Escandon (Miami, Fl.)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Caputo's digestion of the Vietnam War is a merit not only to the degraded soldiers involved, but a glorification of a pushy parent. In this case, the pushy parent is the United States government. Phil Caputo, a young, daring, idealistic man who joined the Marines in search of adventure and unexpectedly come across his own meaning. Taking you into the trenches head first, Caputo exemplifies the tragic events of the war as the soldiers, who believed they living their fathers World War II legacy only found death. The journeys through the Vietnamese jungles slowly transform Caputo and in a way harden him. Being shot at, never knowing exactly why he's out there and ultimately the death of his friend blow his preconceived notions out of the blood drenched jungle waters. The thematic which rears its ugly head from time to time is `natural human inclination versus duty.' In this case, the natural inclination was the why behind the war. Many soldiers did not know why they were fighting and were never given proper answers. However, the pressure from the US government is satiable. They want the soldiers to simply kill, and much like a baseball score, would deliver the winning numbers to the American public over the nightly news. Caputo's insight gives us a window view into how in reality; the soldiers were not at fault for the loss of the Vietnam War. In fact, the blame is placed upon the US government. With all of their secrets, special interests and bizarre motivations, they push American citizens to support the war and draft as many of them as they can. Through propaganda, patriotism takes a whole different meaning.
In many ways, the fight that was waged in Vietnam was one that was doomed from the very beginning. The rooted purpose as to why the Americans landed on Vietnam was uncertain. Fighting the Viet Cong or the Viet Ming was much like trying to stop a water leak. Fighting through the jungle, the Americans faced a war unlike any other. The enemy was everywhere without a land marked base for the Americans to attack. Trying to stop this leak in one area, only meant that the leak would apply its pressure in another unexpected area. And throughout all of this, the American Citizens blamed the soldiers for everything. They blamed them for going to war, for loosing the war and even blamed those who had enough foresight to not fight in the war.
Caputo's in the knee deep approach is a liberating view of the world. For so many years, the war had a lot of question marks written all over it. Many, simply believed that the war was lost because American soldiers were weak hippies. Caputo brings a different machine to the table as he gives us his through the eyes experience. His testimony gives us the fall of the romanticized idea of war, with its true horror, running around the jungle with no idea why your there, the loss of dear friends, the mechanistic view of death and numbers, endless despair and the overall frustration of fighting an enemy that in many ways was much like a ghost.
Caputo describes the war much like an exercise in dehumanization, and I completely agree with him. I enjoyed the read simply because it gave me an insight I did not have before. The soldiers of this war were confused and were riding the wave of World War II. In reality, it was a sham. These soldiers were used simply as killing machines. Forced into combat with ideas of glory and honor. Ultimately, they found death and questions.
A Rumor of War March 24, 2010
Justin R. Schaub
A Rumor of War is simply the best book I have read on Vietnam. It's extremely personnel and gripping. I felt like I was there with him in Vietnam.
Simply put, this is a book everyone should read. You can draw parallel's with this experience to current generation of soldiers across the globe.
Traveling to Vietnam?First book I'd take. March 11, 2010
Rodney W. Liner (San Francisco)
I have been to Vietnam twice in the last 14 months. Seventy percent of the population has no direct memory of U.S. soldiers fighting in their villages. Sometimes for the American traveler, unless he/she searches for the remnants of the war, it is hard to envision the violence, the bombing, the suffering....Caputo's book let's you pull back curtain of Vietnam today, allowing you to feel the stress he encountered from 65-75. It is frankly the best Vietnam book I have ever read.
I have visited many of the major battle sites in Vietnam and Cambodia and museums and interviewed soldiers from both countries.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 118
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